by A few months before the NFL design of 2024, I lunch with a personnel at the annual scouting combine of the competition when the conversation focused on the bumper harvest of Quarterbacks of that year. While we checked the list and debated variables for each player, who eventually contained six first round QBs, he closed the conversation with a gold clog.
“The strongest arm – one of the strongest arms I have ever seen – may not even be set up to day 3,” he said. ‘The arm of this guy is almost [Buffalo Bills quarterback] Josh Allen and maybe really stronger. ‘
I didn’t have to hear the name. I knew he was talking about Tennessee Volunteers Quarterback Joe Milton, whose arm power BUZZ had drawn since his first year in Michigan. But the NFL -Chatter about Milton really started to rise from the NFL design of 2023, after the meteoric rise of Anthony Richardson all the way to the number 4 -pick that year -largely because of the top axis of Richardson, the size and a sample arm. After Richardson had founded the concept board, a question began to percolate in the coming months about Milton, who had been transferred to Tennessee and in turn waited behind Hendon Hooker. And that question was this: Given his similar size and athletic profile such as Richardson, but with an even stronger arm, could Milton zoom to the top of the 2024 design board?
[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem is back: Enter for a shot to win up to $50K]
The answer was no. Not even nearby.
Instead, the class of 2024 was stuck with Elite Quarterback talent and the concept assessment of Milton under teams was hard. Some opponents did not like his accuracy in the field or his ability to deliver an easy -to -disadvantageous ball. Others felt like he trusted too much on his arm power and lacked contact and the ability to make passages between coverage. Still others simply hated the simplicity and the overall strange structure of Tennessee’s violation, which was also a criticism when Hooker was a design perspective one season earlier. In turn, they wondered if Milton was a high-level processor after six years of university football, or just used a scheme that had no real NFL application or busy to read versatile defenses.
The end result: Milton fell on the sixth round of the design before the patriots pick it up, which eventually accompanied it with the third general choice (and future starter), Drake Maye.
This embedded content is not available in your region.
Just over 10 months later, this concept story has become something of a story with a free agency. Een die begon tijdens de Senior Bowl in januari, toen een boodschap zich een weg bracht naar de voorkant van NFL -teams: na een bemoedigend rookie -seizoen dat Milton goed zag spelen in het voorseizoen en vervolgens tijdens een seizoensfinale tegen de Buffalo Bills, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, de Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots, the Patriots power Be inclined to listen to offers on the soon 25-year-old backup. The same guy to which Tete owner Robert Kraft referred in a joke after the season when he mused that the patriots “have luck” and maybe “have two quarterbacks”.
But it was clear from that senior: if the patriots add a seasoned back -up quarterback to help support and develop a season, it would be a sign that telephone calls would be taken for Milton. Then on Monday, when the Patriots veteran-up-up Joshua Dobbs signed as one of the best preparation and QBS in the competition came a deal of two years, $ 8 million. Just like that, the question pointed to what it meant for Milton and whether or not there were more traders.
On Tuesday I contacted several Quarterback-Neder teams and some personnel evaluators who worked on Milton a year ago. And the answer I received was: only one team is needed to find him enough to exchange for him, but has not been demonstrated enough that he justifies a high concept choice in exchange.
While an AFC taluator framed it: “He fell in the design because the evaluations were what they were. What has changed? It’s not like he was developed there as a starter [last season]. “
The answer, I answered, was that Milton had played well in exhibition knips and then had a good outing against the bills -they largely against backups in a match in which Buffalo de Play -Off health prioritized a victory. And then there is the assessment of the Patriots, which seems to be very positive about the talent and progress, given the joke of Kraft about having two quarterbacks.
“That is their biased opinion. It is not like other teams saw him practice every day, “the evaluator replied. ‘And the work that was done on him [as a draft prospect] Is still quite fresh. “
The skepticism of the evaluator was not isolated. A cross-section of evaluators of executives at a high level to scouts who were bent about the idea that Milton was now worth a pick of the second round or even a third-rounder-to-base of one game where nothing was at stake for the opponent.
“Maybe another strong preseason will do it, but he went to the sixth for a reason,” said an NFC evaluator.
“Two choices in the senior bowl game, not the best in reading defenses, despite a smile of a million dollars and a huge arm,” said a long-term AFC director at a high level. “He could not keep the job at Michigan, a simple system run. People don’t forget it. “
I could repeat all the reviews, but they were largely a version of the last two. With the emphasis on the reality that the patriots may love him internally, but there is now simply not enough production on the field to make a player of the sixth round that each team has passed on a second or third round pick several times-included New England-in.
That said, there remains the “only one” one “reality of the trade market.
As an evaluator said: “[The Indianapolis Colts] Daniel Jones gave a year [and] $ 14 million and he looked as one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL when he last played. … I would roll with Joe Milton for Daniel Jones.
“If [Patriots general manager] Eliot Wolf is like his father [Milton won’t be traded]. They will let him have a preseason as he did in the past year and then handle him for a second round pick or more when his stock is high. “
For now it is difficult to find a team to claim that such a peak is happening out of season this season.
